Rapunzel

Selena Kitt

“Are those extensions?”

Nina Malden noticed everything and Rachel’s new hair was no exception. None of her other clients had said a word-they talked about vacations in Cabo and how difficult it was to get dinner reservations at Tru while Rachel mixed color and folded foil for highlights and the sharp snip of her scissors accompanied the endless chatter-but no one had mentioned her hair.

“It’s-” Rachel glanced in the mirror over Nina’s perfectly coiffed head. She’d never understood the phenomenon-who went into a salon for a cut with their hair already styled? But every client at Rapunzel’s showed up made-up, even dolled-up, for their appointment. As a stylist, she had to un-do before she could re-do, and sometimes up-do, the hair in question.

Rachel fingered the hair on her head, thick and long, as close as she could get to natural, a trifecta of color, brownish-red with bright golden highlights that no one could ever define. It fell past her shoulders to the middle of her back in luxurious, beautiful waves. She couldn’t admit the truth, not even to herself, let alone to Nina Malden.

Telling her it was a wig would open a door she preferred to keep firmly closed.

She was thankfully saved from responding by a crisis up front. The raised voice of one of the stylists-she was sure it was Joshie-caught her attention immediately.

She made sure Nina was seated and comfortable before she excused herself to go handle the drama, which involved two appointments-one cut, one perm-scheduled at once for the same stylist. Her new receptionist, just twenty-six and a graduate of NYU, had proven to be a disaster so far. Rachel was usually such a great judge of character, but she’d been distracted when she hired Carly. Unfortunately, Carly didn’t work Saturdays, so Rachel couldn’t scold her. Instead they were taking turns between appointments manning the phone.

“I can’t do them both at once!” Joshie’s big brown eyes, rimmed with silver eyeliner, actually filled with tears. He was wringing his delicate, ring-adorned hands as if he’d dipped them in something very unagreeable and couldn’t get it off. “It’s impossible!” Rachel glanced at the lobby where the first client, a model in need of a spiral perm, checked her perfect profile in a compact. The other patron was just a young girl, maybe fifteen, bright and freshly pretty. Rachel envied her. The man beside her had to be her father- better be, she thought, taking in his age and demeanor, or else he was in danger of serious prosecution under pedophile laws, the way he was holding her hand and whispering into her ear.